I had this idea for a while so I wanted to share it here, with how the five named students of shoyo and how they (initially) reacted to his death reflect the 5 stages of grief. 



Quick recap or for those who don't know, the five stages of grief are: Denial (not wanting to confront the truth of where the grief stems from), Anger (reacting in rage to not confront the grief), Bargaining (trying to bargain out of it by trying to compromise), Depression, (Confronting the grief and feeling a deep sense of emptiness from it), and finally acceptance (Coming to terms with ones grief and moving on from it) 



Depending on the source, anger and bargaining might come in opposite order but im using the more general order here. 



Nobume being Denial: a bit of a stretch but she did try to repress her memories of Shoyo and utsuro the most (including by founding a new father figure in Isaboro) and after he died she does what she can to help stop Utsuro. 



Takasugi being Anger: Pretty obvious, as he felt the most enraged at the world for letting shoyo die, and only after his fight with gintoki, where he was able to let all of that out, he managed to move on and become a more diplomatic man, albeit still having some rage in him as shown with how he blames utsuro for shoyos death. 



Oboro being bargaining: Also pretty easy, as he served Utsuro simply as a replacement for shoyo despite knowing deep down it was wrong, and he also wanted shoyo all to himself which shows he was compromising when he had him killed. 



Gintoki being Depression: I know this one might seem strange to some with how easygoing gin is, but its clear from certain flashbacks that after Shoyo's death he was the student who felt most empty, like in the shinigami arc where we see he was ready to just give up his life a while after Shoyo's death. It was only after he found a new purpose with those he started to live again, and even so it takes a good part of the series for him to truly move on. 



Zu….. i mean Katsura being acceptens: Immediately i just put him here since i already came up with the others, but i do think it fit Katsura as he was the one who 1. Seems to be the least affected by Shoyo's death (not saying he wasn't at all but compared to gin and sugi he definitely handled to the best) and 2. The fact his main goal in the series doesn't have a lot to do with Shoyo proves he isn't held back by it. 



So anyway thats just a theory/analysis i made hope you like it i guess. 



Shoyos students and the stages of grief (BIG spoilers for the endgame of the series)